Associated British Ports (ABP) has
submitted plans to raze the six-storey Solent Flour
Mills building within Western Docks. It said
re-purposing the building, which has been unused
since Hovis ended production there in 2018, was "not
financially viable or feasible". ABP said it needed
to "optimise the amount of ground level storage"
within the port. "Given the specialist nature of
the activity that took place within the facility,
re-purposing the building is not financially viable
or feasible." It said the work would begin within
three months and would take about 40 weeks to
complete.
Heritage campaigners said it was a "key link with
our industrial past". City councillor Sarah Bogle
called on ABP to at least preserve the "most
historic aspects" of the building, reports the
Local Democracy Reporting Service. "We
need to work with ABP to find alternative solutions
to demolition, bring other partners in and instead
of losing a much-loved part of our heritage, find a
new purpose for the building that benefits both the
city and the port."
The mills, built by Joseph Rank (the
founder of Rank Hovis McDougall), were completed in
October 1934, and heralded the beginning of a new
commercial life for Southampton Docks.
It was the first building constructed on 200 acres
of reclaimed land, set aside by the Southern Railway
for industrial development that was to establish
Southampton as a major centre of industry and
commerce.
